CA Dems ripped by experts for dodging debate question on progressive policies impacting crime: 'In denial'

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Three Democrats vying for an open California Senate seat denied in a recent debate that progressive policies have gone "too far" in the Golden State amid surging crime which experts tell Fox News Digital flies in the face of reality and the data.

"Have progressive reforms like doing away with bail for nonviolent crimes or reducing certain felonies to misdemeanors, have those progressive reforms gone too far?" KTLA's Frank Buckley asked Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, and the other 2 Democrats and 1 Republican on the debate stage Monday night.

The three Democrats on the stage, Schiff, Rep. Katie Porter, and Rep. Barbara Lee, all declined to directly connect California’s crime surge to progressive prosecutors and policies and instead outlined other changes they would like to see.

Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Cully Stimson and Legal Fellow Zack Smith, authors of the new book "Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America's Communities", told Fox News Digital that it is impossible to ignore the effects progressive policies have had on crime in California.

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Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee (Getty Images)

"Adam Schiff and Miss Porter and Miss Lee are in denial because they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them which is the Soros money which funded the progressive prosecutor movement and the bail reform movement and so there's no way they can commit political suicide by criticizing the policies," Stimson told Fox News Digital. 

Over the past few decades, California voters have passed ballot measures supported by prominent Democrats, including Prop 47, that turned felonies into misdemeanors and lowered the threshold for parole. 

Schiff acknowledged in the debate there’s "no question" the state has a "crime problem" but said the "data doesn’t show" that progressive reforms or propositions are to blame. Lee argued that enhanced sentences "don’t reduce crime."

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An aerial view of the California State Capitol  (Justin Sullivan/Justin Sullivan)

Stimson and Smith told Fox News Digital the opposite is true. 

"The data that they suggest supports their argument actually undercuts their argument," Stimson told Fox News Digital. 

"The data that's out there actually shows that prosecuting people helps reduce crime and when Lee says enhanced sentences don't reduce crime she has it exactly wrong," Stimson said. "The U.S. Sentencing Commission has seven studies in a row that says longer sentences result in lower recidivism rates. People with ten years or more sentences compared with mass offenders have a 29% lower recidivism rate and people with five or more years of a sentence have a 19% lower recidivism rate for people who are mass offenders who serve less than five years."

During her response to the crime question, Porter warned that the state shouldn’t go back to the "so-called tough on crime" sentencing policies of the 1990s because of the "terrible racial discrimination that setback communities of color for generations." 

IRVINE, CA - OCTOBER 14: U.S. representative Katie Porter speaks as U.S. President Joe Biden is seen at the event on lowering costs for American families at Irvine Valley Community College in Irvine, California, United States on October 14, 2022. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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"That’s nonsense," Smith told Fox News Digital. "If you look at the data, actually crime rates and incarceration rates were falling for many, many years prior to the crime surge over the past several years."

"If you listen to some of what they were saying, you know, Adam Schiff in particular was focused on organized retail theft, Katie Porter said we shouldn't go back to the law and order tough on crime policies, that sort of thing,we know what works to bring down violent crime rates," Smith said. "Broken windows policing. You put police officers on the street. Allow them to do their jobs and then have proactive prosecutors who are willing to appropriately prosecute cases that come in front of them."

Progressive prosecutors in cities like Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have faced intense criticism as crime has spiked in recent years which Stimson and Smith write about extensively in their book outlining their conclusion that the prosecutors, some backed by Soros, are attempting to "reverse engineer" the criminal justice system. 

San Francisco voters recalled Soros-backed DA Chesa Boudin in 2022 and Los Angeles residents narrowly fell short of putting a recall of Soros-backed DA George Gascon on the ballot. 

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Hungarian-born US investor and Democrat donor George Soros  (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

Lee’s response to the question about progressives going "too far" included the claim that getting AK-47s and "assault weapons" off the streets is a main reason why crime in her hometown of Oakland has spiraled out of control in recent years.

"Her idea of getting AK-47s off the streets is a joke," Stimson told Fox News Digital. "It's illegal handguns used by thugs against thugs and drug dealers. She won't criticize Pamela Price, the Soros rogue prosecutor in her county, because she can't. But, if she had a spine, she would."

The only Republican on the stage Monday night, former baseball star Steve Garvey, did point to some district attorney in the state not doing their job and police officers who have told them their hands are tied by certain policies. 

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told Fox News Digital last year that voters were "lied to" about Prop 47 and other ballot measures and that crime took a turn for the worse when the state "stopped enforcing drug rules and laws."

Progressives have pointed to a variety of studies they say show crime rates and recidivism have been improved by progressive reforms which Smith said must be taken with a grain of salt which he and Stimson have written about in the past.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., attends a news conference with the Pro-Choice Caucus on the reintroduction of the "Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act, outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, January 26, 2023.  (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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"The data and science that I'm aware of actually supports things like enhanced penalties, like California's three strikes law," Smith said. "The data and science that so many on the left might decide to cite, be careful because the studies don't always say what they purport to say, or here are very serious methodological problems."

Smith said that many Democrats like the three on stage Monday night "unfortunately feel" that is politically "to their advantage" not to criticize progressive policies to appease their liberal base.

"Retail theft and violent crime has gone up substantially because of Prop 47 and Schiff and the rest of them were for it at the time so they can't criticize the progressive policies because they were all in for them," Stimson told Fox News Digital. 

"So their answers are irresponsible and they shouldn't be taken seriously whatsoever with respect to their so-called ideas on crime."